Re: [tlug] [OT] Say _no_ to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

[<burlingk@example.com>]

 On Tue, 03 Jul 2007 11:52:36 +0900, 
 "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com> wrote 
 in <871wfqyz9n.fsf@example.com>:

>> Josh Glover writes:
>> 
>>  > On 03/07/07, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:
>>  > > How about "I'm a open source liberal, not a free software
socialist"?
>> 
>>  > I'm so going to use this! May I consider it CC By-Sa 3.0? [1] ;)
>> 
>> Definitely not!  If you must have a license, please use the AFL 3.0
>> 
>           http://www.opensource.org/licenses/academic.php
>
>Just don't take my Name in vain (clause 6) or sue me for patent
infringement (clause 10) and 
>you'll be OK.

You know, I was going to use chunks from one of the other
messages, but this one sums up my point nicely.  GPLv2 wasn't
a bad liscense in my oppinion.  It achieved their goals for
that version of the liscense.  It was a little wordy perhaps,
but it worked.  It addressed the issues they wanted to address,
but avoided the issues they wished to avoid.  Ironically, it is
just those issues that lead them to start work on GPLv3.

On a side note: Overall, I preffer the LGPLv2 to pretty much any
of the other GNU liscenses.  It lets you give away important
chunks of code, without showing off the stuff you want to keep
to yourself.  That is a programmer/company's right as well. Some
people are very private, and some are very paranoid.  For those
people, the LGPL is a much better solution than the GPL.  Not to
mention the whole proprietary vs free issue.  LGPL can give them
both.

Anyway, onto my point.  The spirit and word of the BSD 1.0
liscense covers exactly what the GNU foundation claims to want to
cover with the GPLv3.  All the little details are there, without
all the legalistic and politically correct crap.

In GPLv1 and 2 they intentionally avoided the issue of patents.
They swore that it would not be an issue they would touch.  Now,
software patent law has caught them by surprise, and rather than
look at how things were done in liscenses that already address the
issue, they choose to deny the need for any outside help, and
Spend 18 months reinventing the wheele.  To me, the end result is
a convoluted, legalistic piece of refuse that is not even worth
printing out to mark up as a bad example.  Version 2 was not the
greatest document in history, but it at least was within the spirit
of the GNU movement.  GPLv3 to me represents the anti-thesis of 
GPLv2, not an improvement of it.  It is as if in the forming of this
one document, they decided to throw out the values of their organization
and effectively form a new one, with a new set of values and the
same name.

If I use a  GPL liscense in future, it will likely be the LGPLv2,
or sometimes the GPLv2.  I think so far though the best one I have
actually read was probably the BSD 1.0 liscense.  The GNU foundation
refused to look at it initially simply on the grounds that it had a
patent clause.  When I read it though the first time, it was in light
of the current GPLv3 situation.  To me, it read almost like a plain
english version of the GPLv2, including the patent clause that the GNU
Foundation claimed they wanted in the GPLv3.

A major note though, that goes from the realm of values to the
realm of blind fanatacism.  The "Tivo Controversy" would never
have happened under the BSD 1.0 liscense.  Under that liscens,
and under what used to be professed as the values of the GNU
Foundation, TiVo had every right to do what they did.  They took and
used open source[1] software, and used it for their product.  They
stuck a link on the web where people could get ahold of their
modified sources.  The fact that most programmers did not care to
put the effort into making that code useable on another platform
should not have been an issue.  That is the issue of the community,
not them.  The fact that their device was designed to work with
their software, and didn't like being jacked with should also not
have been an issue.  It was their hardware, their choice.  Just
like it was the choice of the consumer to buy or not buy their
products.

So much of the effort waisted on the GPLv3, and the reason it
took them so long to hash it out, was so that they could find
a way to legaly take away the developers rights to make that
type of decision concerning their products and their code.

With GPLv2, the author of the code and the users of the code both
had almost equal rights.  Things were generally a bit in favor of 
the creator of the software, since he chose the liscense.  With
GPLv3, everyone's rights are restricted enough that I am not sure
completely why anyone would choose to use it.  

Just to make things clear, my comments may be a bit biased by my
views.  It is not possible to be otherwise, for any of us. :)
However, I am basing none of these comments on hype or FUD.  I
Am basing my comments on the history of the GNU movement, and
Having read the four liscenses referenced here with my own eyes.

I followed along with the GPLv3 forums and discussions as long
as I could stand.

Many people have apparently raised the GNU foundation almost to
the level of a religion.  That said, as with any religion, there
are those who have twisted and perverted the original intent.  That
has left a lot of people with three choices.  1) Follow the flow and
hold on for dear life.  2) Hold on to the old beliefs and not move
forward with the new organization.  3) Abandon ship all together, and
go in another direction.

Being as I am more philisophical than religious, the decisions were
a bit easier for me.  In future, I will use LGLPv2 where appropriate,
and BSD 1.0 or similar in most other places.